PERSPECTIVES ON EDUCATION : Will LEARN Bring Real Reform, or Is It Time for Vouchers? : By giving power to individual schools, LEARN will restore credibility to the public school system.

California’s ascendancy was fueled by a public education system second to none. America’s distinct promises of opportunity and democracy were made tangible by a government that willingly educated its people.

Whether those historic realities of public education can be part of our future is now being tested in Los Angeles. The fate of LEARN (Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now) will say much about our commitment to a broadly educated public.

And it will be an important test of whether we have the courage to reshape government so that it once again performs and regains desperately needed public confidence.

The LEARN plan is simple. It recognizes that the current bureaucratic structure is not working. It gives responsibility back to schools--to the teachers, parents and principals who care most about the children, and challenges everyone to meet new standards of achievement. It infuses schools with a new burst of entrepreneurial energy and a renewed sense of mission.

The LEARN plan speaks to larger beliefs: that public schools are relevant to California’s resurrection and that the social fabric is best woven by the thread of broad educational opportunity.

It recognizes that reversing the dynamic of decline requires trying new ideas, risking failure and being willing to try again.

That those who espouse private school vouchers should oppose LEARN comes as no surprise, for LEARN may achieve what voucher advocates fear most--renewed hope for a credible public education system that best teaches our children and educates our work forces.

That those who profess to be advocates of public education should fight the plan is of more immediacy. Rear-guard elements of the United Teachers of Los Angeles have voted to oppose the plan, despite the progressive participation of UTLA President Helen Bernstein, educational leaders, parents and rank-and-file teachers in fashioning the LEARN reforms and despite the fact that schools volunteering to pioneer the reforms are doing so with the approval of 75% of each school’s teachers.

These opponents miscalculate the larger issue at stake:

* It is not about teachers versus administrators or contracts versus reforms.

* It is about whether the Los Angeles public schools can defeat dismantling by a rebirth of consensus and by collective will.

* It is about whether the public sector can successfully secure its rightful role as the primary educational force in our democratic society.

* It is about whether we are prepared to honor the ideals that drew teachers to the front lines of public service in Los Angeles schools.

* And, it is about whether public confidence--and needed funding--can be restored.

At a time when unions across America are working with management to renew industries,and when parents desperately want our schools to succeed, the faction working against LEARNdoes not understand that the alternative to renewal and reform is the slow, excruciatingdeath of the institution they supposedly seek to protect.

The voucher advocates, the government dismantlers, relish the opportunity to campaign against dysfunctional institutions that show no talent for transformation. Advocates of an effective public sector cannot blindly defend what is clearly no longer working and should not seek to draw the last drop of blood from a dying beast.

Those of us who believe that public institutions can be an instrument of change have the highest burden to support LEARN at this critical stage. We must be willing to perform the surgery necessary to restore the health of the public realm.

And, if we cannot succeed in the arena of public education--in which the efficacy of public action has been an accepted American premise for two centuries--then where will we make our fight?

The California dream was built on the foundation of public education. And if we have the courage to test the ideas of risk and change embodied in LEARN, we can go back to the future.